Menu

Yogurt and Patience

I think yogurt making must be one of those zen activities, like rotating bottles of champagne or trimming bonsai trees. Very slow and meticulous. Lots of waiting and observing. First you heat the milk to 185 degrees. Slowly, don’t let it really boil, stirring occasionally. Then you have to let the milk cool off until it gets back to around 110-115 degrees. This takes a lot longer than you would think. About an hour, in fact. I got impatient and cheated a bit and poured it from the metal pan into the individual yogurt jars and that speeded it up. Serves me right for being impatient if the yogurt is nasty. But the temperature finally hit the range and I stirred in my two tablespoons of starter into one of the cups of milk. The starter was some organic yogurt from the farmer’s market with live and active cultures. I poured all the milk back into the pan and blended it with the starter milk. Then I started ladling it back into the jars. Only to remember that I’d doubled the recipe. So I poured it back out and stirred in two more tablespoons, stirred, blended and then ladled again. Finally got it all covered and into the yogurt maker, covered it and set the timer for 10 hours. I got up earlier and took a look at it. Looked like yogurt, but there was still 17 minutes to go, so I let it keep cooking until the timer went off. Then I used the cover as a tray and put all the jars into the fridge to set. Apparently this the most common mistake is doing stuff to it until it has had a chance to set up. So – 3-4 hours minimum in the fridge means I will get to do some straining this evening when I come home. (I might sneak home at lunch and do it – I really want to try this stuff!)

Next step is to strain out the whey (liquid) to make greek yogurt. I’m excited! I’ve got my honey and blueberries and my pack of Splenda just WAITING!

HURRY!

I have no patience. Sigh.

Speaking of patience and zen and hurry – I had a serious bitch alert yesterday. We were going over to a friend’s house for a birthday dinner and of course we were running late. I raced around and did what I was supposed to do at lighting speed. But then, of course, the boys weren’t ready. ARGGHGHGH! Really? What were they doing? Not the essential, we have to get out of the house stuff, but random things like checking on the dogs and putting away dishes. Okay, all needed to happen at some point, but could easily have been done earlier in the day or after we got back.

And yes, I could have been less of a bitch about it. I was monstrously rude to my poor husband. And for what? We were 6 minutes late and the only other guest didn’t get there until 30 minutes after we did. It was a nice relaxed evening and there probably wasn’t any reason for me to do my impersonation of the orcs in the Two Towers. I was slashing my verbal whip for all it was worth. I really need to work on my patience. I’m pretty good with everyone else on the planet except myself, my husband and my son. Why is that?

I need to learn to relax more. I’m taking yoga, meditating and making yogurt – maybe I need to get a bonsai tree.

Karen aka the Project Manager

50-something mom, wanna be writer and adventurer trying to figure out my 40+ year battle with food and eating. I’ve done every diet and even had gastric bypass – still gained it back. In 2016 I joined Overeaters Anonymous and for the first time in my life, I am peaceful about food. In November 2017 I learned about Bright Line Eating and am having success with weight loss once again.